The rapid expansion of primary education in Ethiopia has enabled most children to attend primary education--or at least to start schooling. This expansion, however, is largely "symbolic" rather than "substantive" where "substantive" refers to access that generates meaningful learning. The article explores spatial…

Despite calls to expand early childhood education (ECE) in the United States, questions remain regarding its medium- and long-term impacts on educational outcomes. We use meta-analysis of 22 high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducted between 1960 and 2016 to find that on average, participation in ECE leads to statistically…

The authors present findings from a data-driven account in which they followed ten fifth-grade students receiving intervention in reading through Georgia's test-based grade retention policy. Under the policy, the students had little confidence in themselves as readers and felt that reading test passages was unnecessary and difficult. Consequently,…

In South Africa, the educational attainment of African children has been a focal point of policy and research since the end of apartheid in 1994. Individual and policy-level determinants of child development and educational outcomes have been exhaustively investigated. A less researched perspective is the role of community and household…

This study hypothesized that repeating a grade is one reason why Honduran primary students drop out of school but not the main reason. Using longitudinal data, we analyzed student enrollment patterns up until students left school. The results revealed that many students dropped out suddenly without having previously repeated a grade, although many…

Education can play an important role in making European societies fairer and more inclusive. To accomplish this, education systems must ensure that all young people are able to develop their talents and achieve their full potential regardless of their background. However, socio-economic background continues to be a strong determinant of student…

Each year, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) offers a summer education program designed to assist students with a variety of instructional needs. Centrally coordinated summer school programs in 2020 included accelerated instruction for State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and STAAR End-of-Course (EOC) re-testers;…

Students with chronic illness generally have higher school needs than their healthy peers. The research to date examining school support for these needs has been limited to qualitative methods. We collected quantitative data to compare the school needs and supports received by 192 students with chronic illness and 208 students without chronic…

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs are school-based preventive interventions that aim to improve children's social-emotional skills and behavioral development. Although meta-analytic research has shown that SEL programs can improve academic and behavioral outcomes in the short term, few studies have examined program effects on receipt of…

In this paper we use data from students who participated in the oversubscribed Boston Public Schools (BPS) prekindergarten program as a window into variation in the program's medium-term effects. We first examine whether, for the sample of students who applied to oversubscribed BPS prekindergarten programs, there is variation in the effects of the…

Although numerous claims are made about the necessity for research to improve teaching and learning practices, links between research and teaching are still tenuous. Therefore we argue that the issue of linking research to practice should be tackled in a different way than in the past. Research knowledge in education should consider teachers and…

Research reveals that grade retention as a sole intervention for low achieving students is not sufficient to improve student achievement (Jimerson, 200l). This study used a qualitative design (Marshall & Rossman, 2011) to examine the phenomenon of grade retention and intervention approaches for low achieving students in Connecticut school…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to evaluate the long-term effects of Florida's Third-Grade Retention policy on low performing students' subsequent academic performance as measured by FCAT reading scores. The study included a random stratified sample of 1500 retained third graders for failure to meet Florida's…

Transition to middle school in Portugal is associated with increased levels of stress for students, as well as an increase in grade retention. This study investigated the impact of a school adjustment program designed to support students during this transition, and its differential results by gender and fourth-grade class size. Multilevel linear…

Using an intersectional feminist critical race lens, we utilized the Education Longitudinal Study (2002) data comparing tenth grade African American girls to White girls, analyzing whether the student was ever held back, teacher reports of problem behaviors in classrooms, and whether the student did not graduate from high school in the four years…